Below is an excerpt from the Literature Review conducted for #WomanTalk's academic research component.
Butler, Connell, and Wood are three important gender researchers and theorists to study when learning about gender and gender identity. In Undoing Gender by Judith Butler (2004), she notes the key differences between gender and sex, which are important to understand when analyzing the gender spectrum. She states that, “sexuality does not follow from gender in the sense that what gender you ‘are’ determines what kind of sexuality you will ‘have’” (16). It is important to remember that “sex” is a biological assignment, while “gender” is something that is perceived or understood by the individual. This is why she says that there are difficulties surrounding gender and identity, because, for example, an individual who is biologically female may not choose to identify as a “woman” or “heterosexual”, thus adding to the complexities and intricacies of the gender spectrum. Butler adds that, “To assume that gender always and exclusively means the matrix of the “masculine” and “feminine” is precisely to miss the critical point that the production of the coherent binary is contingent, that it comes at a cost, and that those permutations of gender which do not fit the binary are as much a part of gender as its most normative instance” (42).
Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) state that gender is constructed via societal influences and perceived stereotypes. They explore how common traits of hegemonic masculinity observed within mainstream media help to solidify one’s understanding of what masculinity is, and how femininity and feminine stereotypes impact the “masculine ideal”. They state that, “The need for a more sophisticated treatment of embodiment in hegemonic masculinity is made particularly clear by the issue of transgender practices, which are difficult to understand within a simple model of social construction. (851). Wood (2005) examines many aspects of how gender can be understood and how they affect communication. She says that, “symbolic interactionism underlines the fact that gender is socially created and sustained through communication that encourages us to define ourselves as gendered and to adopt the roles that society prescribes for us” (53). This means that within Western culture, gendered roles can be directly related to biological sex, which is not the case for many individuals. This further adds to the idea that if an individual does not feel as though they relate to a perceived gender and/or sex, that they are seen as “different” and may not be accepted as the stereotypical interpretation of “man” or “woman”. Holmes and Meyerhoff (2003) also explore this understanding of gender throughout The Handbook of Language and Gender. Many chapters of this text are important to this project, but chapter 16, entitled “Language and Gender in Adolescence” looks at the development of identity during adolescent years and how understanding gender can be interpreted when trying to conceive a personal sense of self. They draw on the use of language and pronouns to describe gender, and explore how these societal stereotypes can impact one’s development.
In Queer Theory and Social Change, Kirsch (2000) focuses much on queer theory itself, but also how Western culture can often “dichotomize gender and sexuality into either/or patterns” (49). Kirsch studies the gender binary, and how there currently may not be a clear understanding of the gender spectrum as a whole, and that there is still much to be explored when learning about how gender, identity, and sexuality all play a part in one’s makeup. They say, “The categories of male and female based on anatomical criteria are neither universal nor valid concepts for a gendered classification system” (Herdt cited in Kirsch 51). Although more scientific and psychological, Dargie et al. (2014) find similar conclusions in their study of transgender individuals and their personal understanding and experiences with gender. Their results concluded that subjects may not identify with just one gender specifically and that, “Since trans persons must engage in a great deal of self- discovery and personal reflection, they may embody the traits that best reflect their own experiences, rather than restricting themselves to qualities common to only one gender” (Dargie et al. 69). Browning (2016) stated similar findings in The Fate of Gender: Nature, Nurture, and the Human Future when discussing transgender identities and understanding gender identities as a whole; “Trans covers multiple identities, not all of which are the same, have the same desires and behaviours, or want to be addressed by the same names” (Browning 27). This shows how there is much to be explored when understanding the complexities of the gender spectrum in relation to self-identity.
When looking at what the term woman means and how it has evolved, Elisabeth Porter (1991) states in Women and Moral Identity that, “In confronting the evidence of sex-role systems, feminist researchers sought to discover why ‘being a women’ often appeared empirically and conceptually different from ‘being a man’” (7). This is also why and how the social construct of being “treated as a woman” if one is biologically female exists (7). When trying to understand what a “biological woman” is, Porter says,
“While in most cases ‘biological woman’ is circumscribed fairly clearly, the social and moral entity ‘woman’ is more complex. The same complexity occurs in trying to understand what is entailed in being a ‘man’. When the relationship between sex and gender is viewed as a dynamic interaction, processes of oppression are uncovered and space is created for change” (8).
She notes that one’s differences in their identity are crucial to individual selfhood (13), but due to these patriarchal constructs, “sexuality and gender are often in friction with superimposed cultural stereotypes and individual self-interpretations” (33), or that masculinity and femininity have distinguishing aspects to them (35). This “gender-sex system” is also what is responsible for traits associated with the female or woman’s disposition, such as the “sexual division” of labour and parenting (8). In Gender Transformations, Walby (1997), agrees with this prejudiced manner when she states that, “The conventional way to analyse women’s lives is to focus on life events, such as marriage and child care” (10). Oftentimes, the lives of women are based on “a sequence of life events such as marriage, childbearing and child rearing. For men a ‘job model’ is used while for women there is a ‘gender model’” (10).
Simone de Beauvoir, a critical feminist theorist, was interested in understanding how the social construction of gender fits in with choosing to identify as a woman. She also studied “gendered” roles such as parenting and marriage, as Tarrant (2006) says that, “Beauvoir was interested in exposing the myth of the eternal feminine to demonstrate that women were not essentially different but had “become different as a result of conditioning and education, and of an artificial social construction created by men according to their needs” (176). In The Second Sex, Beauvoir (2011) herself states that when thinking about what defines herself, the first thought that came to her mind was that she was a woman, however, this comes with its own set of constructs that have been embedded in the terms stereotypical meaning, “If I want to define myself, I first have to say, ‘I am a woman’; all other assertions will arise from this basic truth (5). This revelation, which opened up a myriad of critical social understandings, was made by Beauvoir in the 1940s (Tarrant 169) and is still just as relevant today. Tarrant states that, “Postwar feminist thinkers began to refine ideas about sex-role ideology so that we could later understand that gender is both socially constructed and politically loaded,” (218) as, “Unmasking the fictions society has constructed about gender requires confronting the question of woman’s experience by contrasting the image woman has on herself with the image of woman projected on her” (172). When analyzing Beauvoir’s theory and how a woman's identity is constructed, Tarrant says that,
“Women have never been on equal footing with men in terms of making exchanges and contracts. According to Beauvoir these unequal patterns of relations between women and men are rooted in existentialist meanings of identity but they are also the result of economic, historical and social elements. In other words, the concept of woman as the second sex, is, at least in part, a construct of our own making” (171).
This relates to the concept of “the other” or otherness (Porter 8), where the woman’s and/or female identity and characteristics are constructed and are not an individual experience, but rather “female becomes a metaphor for the incapacity to give meaning to experience (Tarrant 173). This is also argued by stating that females are considered “passive” bodies while males are considered “active”. Beauvoir found that this is true when looking at biological reproduction (the active male sperm and the passive female egg, for example) (CITE), and Tarrant added that men are considered to be active since they are “able to transform their environment” (171).
Motherhood and its relation to a woman’s identity was a prominent issue when researching this topic. In Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory, Weedon (1991) states, “Patriarchal power rests on the social meaning given to biological sexual difference” (2), as women’s social roles “are defined in relation to a norm which is male” (2). Simons (1991) says in Beauvoir and the Second Sex: Feminism, Race, and Origins of Existentialism, that our experiences and the women and individuals surrounding us throughout our lives are some of the greatest influences on how we define ourselves, especially when being raised or nurtured (87). However, she adds that feminism is, and should be, “pro-choice”, meaning “A woman must be able to choose not to be a mother without losing her self-respect or identity as a woman” (74). Women should be able to “redefine” their femininity and sexuality (Whedon 1).
Kate Bornstein (1995), author of Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us, explains her understanding of what it means to identify as a woman based on her experiences as a transgender individual. She says that gender is, often medically, given to us at birth, and we are not allowed to question it or the place it puts ourselves and our being within our culture and society (22). As Bornstein is someone who has transitioned from one gender to another, she states that,
“I know I’m not a man...and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m probably not a woman either, at least not according to a lot of people’s rules on this sort of thing. The trouble is, we’re living in a world that insists we be one or the other - a world that doesn’t bother to tell us exactly what the other is” (8).
This directly relates to Tarrant’s analysis of woman as the “other” as well; The problem was not only that a woman was considered the other but that she was the unequal other (172). Bornstein notes that, “Belief in biological gender is in fact a belief in the supremacy of the body in the determination of identity” (30), raising important questions about female “roles”, and if they are necessary to being able to identify as one, such as bearing children, menstruating, or going through menopause, even asking, “every woman ceases to possess that capability [of childbearing] after menopause - do these women cease being women?” (56). Bornstein advocates for the removal of a “gendered” and structured identity, saying that in order to end this oppression, “The struggle for equal rights must include the struggle to dismantle the binary” (106).
Since gender is a form of classification (Bornstein 24), individuals should be able to distinguish themselves in any way they choose, Bornstein argues that “Gender fluidity recognizes no borders or rules of gender,” (52) and that by removing gendered stereotypes and constructs, this would also help to begin the restructuring of patriarchy, “as well as ending the many injustices perpetrated in the name of gender inequity” (115)
Afshar (2012) argues in Women and Fluid Identities that fluidity can also relate to work-related societal roles and “ascribed identities, stating that,
“In the context of rapidly changing demands on women, who increasingly are combining their traditional domestic duties with income-generating as well as political activities, it is useful to consider the centrality of fluidity of identities that enables women to defy static labels and combine public obligations with moral duties, moving seamlessly between different...ascribed identities” (2).
Gender fluidity can therefore not just be directly correlated with a woman’s identity, but can also relate to how they participate and engage; “Many reconceptualize their understanding of self and move beyond boundaries that remain fluid, hard to define, and culturally and historically constructed and reconstructed within specific socio economic contexts” (Afshar 1).